Desertification In The Sahel
The Sahel is the ecoclimatic and biogeographic zone of transition in Africa between the Sahara to the north and the Sudanian Savanna to the south. Having a semi-arid climate, it stretches across the south-central latitudes of Northern Africa between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea. The name is …
It also makes the food expensive for the community because there is less food and more people.The causes of desertification in Sahel are by both human and natural activities.The human causes are over cultivation, poor irrigation practices, deforestation, climate change and overgrazing.
German scientists, employing a new climate system model, have concluded that this desertification was initiated by subtle changes in the Earth's orbit and strongly amplified by resulting atmospheric and vegetation feedbacks in the subtropics.
They provide opportunities for development but also face challenges such as desertification. Desertification is the process of land turning into desert as the quality of the soil declines over time. Many countries around the world suffer from the problems caused by desertification but it is the Sahel region of Africa where the effects are greatest.
Many countries around the world suffer from the problems caused by desertification but it is the Sahel region of Africa where the effects are greatest. The Sahel is a narrow belt of land which lies immediately to the south of the Sahara Desert and which extends across most of Africa.
Collectively owned land led to deforestation as well as overgrazing. Forests were depleted as individuals collected wood for burning. Trees and ground cover are necessary to help maintain the soil in the farm lands. Without them, the soil breaks down, gradually turning the area into barren wastelands.
The main causes of desertification include:Population growth - the population in some desert areas is increasing. ... Removal of wood - in developing countries, people use wood for cooking. ... Overgrazing - an increasing population results in larger desert areas being farmed.More items...
Without the roots of trees and other vegetation, the dust is blown away by the wind. As a result of these issues, water has become scarce for people, animals, and plants of the region. Without water and productive land, farmers and herders are unable to sustain their traditional livelihoods.
Rainfall tapered off in the Sahel in the early 1970s, and by 1972, the region was in the grip of a drought that would kill millions. Dry years followed until 1984, when almost no rain fell at all. The vegetation index mirrors these patterns of rainfall in the mid-1980s, and it also mirrors a partial recovery in 1994.
Desertification is the degradation process by which a fertile land changes itself into a desert by losing its flora and fauna, this can be caused by drought, deforestation, climate change, human activities or improper agriculture. Desertification is a process of degradation of the land.
Poverty-related agricultural practices are a major contributor to desertification. Continuous cultivation without adding supplements, overgrazing, lack of soil and water conservation structures, and indiscriminate bushfires aggravate the process of desertification.
Originally it was believed that the drought in the Sahel primarily was caused by humans over-using natural resources in the region through overgrazing, deforestation and poor land management. In the late 1990s, climate model studies suggested that large scale climate changes were also triggers for the drought.
Human activities that contribute to desertification include the expansion and intensive use of agricultural lands, poor irrigation practices, deforestation, and overgrazing.
The Sahel has the world's fastest growing population, and there is a great need to increase food production – but in fact the opposite is taking place. Food production is on the decline. Violence often forces farmers to flee conflict areas and closed roads and markets further reinforce food shortages.
What causes desertification? Over cultivation, overgrazing, deforestation, slash and burn, climate change.
The most common pressures causing deforestation and severe forest degradation are agriculture, unsustainable forest management, mining, infrastructure projects and increased fire incidence and intensity.
The world can combat this phenomenon by understanding the causes of desertification and implementing various acts to aid in regenerating arable land. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), established in 1994, is working to improve conditions and increase productivity in vulnerable areas of the world.
Officially, the United Nations defines desertification as “the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas.”. The shrinking of arable land threatens food and water security for those in poor and rural areas. Poverty and desertification go hand in hand in a vicious cycle.
Farmers would formerly graze livestock by moving the animals around, but this is no longer the case. Cattle grazing in a permanent space prevents the regeneration of the plants the animals are feeding on. Overgrazing makes the soil unusable since the land is unable to keep up ...
Drought alters just about everything including farming opportunity, food and water security, population growth and migration. Drought exacerbates poverty, which is already an issue in many Sub-Saharan countries like Ethiopia and Senegal. Many people in these areas are unable to confront what causes desertification without proper preparation.
Human hands or natural occurrences can exacerbate or spark desertification. In areas of low precipitation, like Sub-Saharan Africa, long droughts that turn arid land to unproductive, barren soil are a frequent cause of desertification.
By 2030, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) calculates that upwards of two-thirds of Africa’ s fertile, productive soil will be lost if desertification continues. In Ethiopia, FAO calculates that desertification causes the loss of 92,000 hectares of woodlands every year, along with 2 billion tons of fertile, productive soil.
Mexico’s citizens are suffering, too. Many entering the U.S. from Mexico are fleeing poverty caused by land degradation, according to the Natural Heritage Institute. The state of Oaxaca, where fruit trees native to Mexico once flourished, possesses dry patches of land no longer useful for agriculture.
Since the 1960’s, the Sahel (the semi-arid land below the Sahara that stretches from Senegal to Eritrea) has experienced a devastating drought and its population has exploded, compounding the demand for firewood, the main source of cooking fuel.
So when there is less rainfall on the land, it then turns the land into desert when it is heated by the sun. High temperature is when it is very hot in the Sahel and due to the high amount of evaporation there will be less rain fall which will then makes the land dry out and turn into desert.To solve the problems caused by desertification in ...
The effect of desertification in the sahel are very bad because it makes the farmers produce less yield of food to the people in the community, the people and animals dies off because of the lack of food. It also makes the food expensive for the community because there is less food and more people.The causes of desertification in Sahel are by both ...
When the plant dose not gets water it dies off and when the soil does not gets water it dry out which makes the land turn dust .Deforestation is when the farmer in the Sahel cut down trees and plant to build houses, making fires and food.
When the trees and plants have been cut down it then makes the soil open to the sun which will make the soil turn into dusts. When the rain falls there wouldn’t be trees to protect the soil from being washed away.Climate change is making the world hotter and causing less rain to fall.
The disadvantage is that it cost money to set up.
The natural cause is the annual rain far below average, and high temperatures. Over cultivation is when farmers exhaust the soil by farming too much on it every year which makes the soil becomes useless to the farmers.
Regardless of its realism, the African Great Green Wall has as its main value to have brought together governments and communities in a common commitment to combat desertification and move forward in the fight against poverty.
In 2007, the Heads of State and Government of Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan and Chad, with the support of the African Union, decided to launch a project to combat desertification in the Sahel and provide a dignified life with a future ...
During the 1960s, there was a period of abundant rainfall that filled the water wells and caused the return of shepherds and farmers, largely driven by the governments of the countries of the strip, some of them recently decolonized. But then droughts returned with greater force.
A massive drought had affected the Sahel, the large 5,400-km strip that crosses Africa from west to east, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. The land was left without water and without a blade of grass, ...
The term Sahel comes from the Arab word sāḥil, which means “edge or coast”. A geographically and climatically correct meaning for an area bordered to the north by the Sahara Desert and to the south by the savannahs and jungles of the Gulf of Guinea and Central Africa. From the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, the Sahel extends through northern Senegal, southern Mauritania, the central areas of Mali and Niger, northern Burkina Faso, southern Algeria, northern Nigeria, the central strip of Chad and Sudan, virtually all Eritrea and northern Ethiopia.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is currently committed to ensuring that lasting impacts are generated in the areas of action, and the project already gathers more than 20 African countries and various civil institutions and research centers.
It was not the first time that the Sahel had been ravaged by a drought. Since systematic records started being kept, at the beginning of the 20th century, the area has experienced alternating climatic periods of abundant and scarce rainfall.